Chapter Text
Alyssa Velaryon/Aenys Targaryen
"Why Rhaena? What's wrong with Rhaenys? What's wrong with my mother's name?" Aenys asks, sulking.
Alyssa touches her husband's arm, gently. "There is nothing wrong with your mother's name. Nothing at all. It is a great name befitting a great woman. But -"
"She was the best woman who ever lived. The best!" insists the young man whose mother died when he was only three.
"She certainly is," Alyssa agrees, about this woman she has never met, to placate her husband. "But I think perhaps it will be better to name our daughter, our firstborn, after both your mothers. To honor Queen Visenya as well as the late Queen Rhaenys. It will -"
"Visenya is only my aunt, not my mother," Aenys interrupts.
"Your stepmother, then."
"When Maegor has a daughter of his own, he can name her after his mother. Why should I have to do it?"
Because your stepmother is staring at our daughter as if she would like to devour her whole. Because her son, eleven though he only is, already prides himself on besting you in every form of manly arts, except the siring of children. Because we have to pretend an outward deference and a show of the greatest respect to the queen, the only queen who still lives. Because your mother is no longer alive to champion your cause, and our children's cause. Because we have to be careful, so very careful.
She could not say these things to her husband, however. It will only distress him, confuse him, bring about his terrible headache and his gripping belly-ache, and cause him to dither and waver endlessly about the right course of action to take. Instead, Alyssa tries a different tack to convince him.
"Will it not distress your father greatly, to have another Rhaenys in the family? Even the mention of your mother's name often causes him the greatest melancholy. He still mourns her deeply and feels the lost as if it had occurred only the day before."
Aenys frowns, considering this.
Alyssa's hand moves from stroking his arm to caressing his cheek. "If you were to die before me ... if you were gone from my side, I would not wish for another kin to bear your name. You should be the only one. My only Aenys."
He smiles, shyly, like a little boy offered an embrace. Whenever Alyssa is straining to be patient with him, or struggling with the wish that her husband is not so ... Aenys-like, she reminds herself of this smile, of this sweet boy she tells herself she must protect like she would have protected her younger brothers, even though she and her husband are both of the same age.
"You are right," he finally says. "Rhaena is a good name for our daughter."
Alyssa Velaryon & Argella Durrandon
The Lord of Storm’s End dithered and wavered about the right course to take, when Alyssa Velaryon and her two children arrived in Storm’s End seeking refuge and his protection. He feared the wrath of King Maegor. He feared the swing of Blackfyre taking his head. He feared the coming of dragons breathing fire over Storm’s End and the stormlands. This, from the son of the woman who once declared to Alyssa’s good-mother Queen Rhaenys that she was welcomed to take the castle if only to rule over bones and blood and ashes, for Argella Durrandon and the defenders of the castle were willing die to the last man and woman to protect it.
It’s a pity the son does not seem to share the mother’s boldness, Alyssa thought.
“This is not our fight,” Argella declared, eyes narrowed, as if she had read Alyssa’s thought. “Why should we risk anything for the fight between dragons?”
Your late husband was half a dragon himself, if the rumor is to be believed. If only Orys Baratheon was still alive. That Lord of Storm’s End would not have hesitated, would have called his banners to fight Maegor the moment he usurped the throne.
“Why not seek refuge in Driftmark, Your Grace, with the Velaryons? With your own people?” Davos Baratheon asked, querulously.
Alyssa suppressed an impatient sigh. He knew full well why not. Driftmark was too close to Dragonstone, and furthermore Lord Velaryon served still as Maegor’s master of ships. Her own people had deserted her. This was no time for impatience, though. Or for pride. She was desperate. For her children’s sake, she had to put pride aside. She would beg, beseech and plead; she would cajole, coax and flatter; and she would put a smile on her face or tears on her cheek while she did it, depending on what was required of the situation.
“Why come to Storm’s End? Why come to us?” Argella asked the question her son had only been hinting at. Davos winced. “Mother,” he murmured softly under his breath.
“Your father was renowned for his leal service to my good-father, and your own brother Ser Raymont died honorably protecting my husband’s life, my lord. Where else should I put my trust, if not in the Baratheons? Who else would be most deserving of it?”
It was the mother who replied, not the son, and her voice was steelier than ever, angrier than ever. “Then don’t you think the Baratheons have done enough for the Targaryens? Tell me, why should we involve ourselves in the quarrels between Targaryens? Why should another drop of Baratheon blood be spilled in defense of another Targaryen?”
Alyssa directed her reply to the mother this time, not the son. “It will not be forgotten, my lady. When my son is king, the loyal services rendered to us by House Baratheon will not be forgotten.”
“I have no granddaughter to be wed to your son and be made queen. I have a grandson, though he is perhaps too old for your little daughter. But then that is a moot point, is it not, since a Targaryen only deigns to wed another Targaryen, or a Velaryon as a last resort if a sibling is not available. Is that not the sacred Targaryen tradition?”
“It does not have to be so, my lady,” Alyssa replied, pretending that she had not noticed the mocking tone in which the question had been posed. “Other arrangements could be made.”
Argella scoffed, giving Alyssa a withering look. “Do you take me for a fishwife haggling for a prize?”
She had offended this old woman. This woman who used to be queen; a ruling queen, not a consort, if only for too short a time. Her grip on power was still strong, if her son’s deferential manner and his worshipful gaze towards her was any indication. To convince the son, Alyssa suspected she had to convince the mother first.
“Maegor ordered the cruel torture and murder of my son Viserys to punish me for escaping from Dragonstone. Do you want a man such as that as your king, my lady?”
“I wish for no Targaryen as my king, in truth, but –“
Robar interrupted, making his voice heard for the first time since Alyssa’s arrival. “Grandmother, remember your promise.”
“- but as my grandson is so fond of reminding me, that sort of talk is treason.” She turned to her son. Mother and son locked gaze for a long while, as if in silent communion. Alyssa held her breath.
“You and your children are welcomed to stay in Storm’s End, Your Grace,” Davos finally said.
“Under your protection?”
“Yes, under his protection,” Argella replied, impatiently. “My son will not hand you to the enemy, not after he has given you his word.”
“And my son’s claim to the throne?”
“Your son is a mere boy of ten. If you wish to wage war for his right to sit the Iron Throne, make sure it is not a futile war. That means you will have to wait,” Argella Durrandon declared.
Alyssa Velaryon/Robar Baratheon
“I remind you of your mother.”
“Not that again. You look nothing like my late mother.”
“I remind you of your grandmother.” The indomitable Argella Durrandon, still surviving almost fifty years after the Conquest that made her a lady instead of a queen, her eyes blazing suspicion, watching her beloved grandson never far from the side of the Queen Regent fourteen years his senior.
Robar laughs. “It is true, I did propose to her once. I challenged her husband to single combat for her hand in marriage. I was a boy of six at the time, mind you. Grandmother said she has neither the time nor the patience to learn the ways of a new husband. So Grandfather and I agreed to a truce instead. We shook hands and polished off a whole pie between us.”
Oh he could be charming, Robar Baratheon, when he puts his mind to it. Alyssa refuses to be coaxed into a smile. “She knows,” Alyssa says. “Your grandmother knows. About us.”
“She knows almost everything. Very little gets by her.”
“She knows, and she does not approve.” Though, Alyssa could not tell whether it is her age or her Targaryen connection that proves to be her biggest flaw in Argella Durrandon’s eyes.
“She loves me, and she will make her peace with it. I am certain of that,” Robar says, full of the arrogant confidence of youth.
You are too young, Alyssa thinks, though he is almost nine-and-twenty. Too young for her three-and-forty. “I already had a husband who needed a mother to coddle him more than he needed a wife,” she says. “I have neither the time nor the patience for another like him.”
“The late King Aenys was born the same year as you were.”
“Maturity is more than just about age.”
“Well, there you go,” Robar says, beaming with satisfaction. “You have made my point for me.” Then, frowning, he asks, “Do you think of him still?”
“Aenys? Sometimes.”
“Do you think of him with affection?”
With compassion. Or is it really pity? “I think he could not help being who he was.”
She had been stronger than Aenys, more determined. But she had not been strong enough for the both of them. If only she had been as strong as Visenya. As determined. As … ruthless?
No, not that. Not the last one.
There are those who condemn Alyssa for ruthlessness comparable to Visenya and Maegor, as if there is truly no difference between consciously choosing to harm another, and being forced to make terrible choices in impossible circumstances.
She was the woman who escaped from her enemy and caused her son to be tortured in retaliation. She was the heartless mother who did not come to claim her son’s body, who left him to rot in the courtyard of the Red Keep.
What do they know of her anguish? Of the ghosts she lives with, still, to this day, to this hour, to this moment? Should she have abandoned Jaehaerys and Alysanne to suffer the same fate as Viserys? Would that have made her a less cold and heartless mother in the eyes of her condemners?
You choose what seems to be the least terrible of all the terrible choices at the time, and you live with the consequences. You live with the consequences, you live with your guilt and your regret, and you force yourself to take the next step. And the next. And the ones after that, all the while knowing that the weight is yours to carry and yours alone, because you are the only one strong enough to carry it.
And isn’t that part of Robar’s attraction for her, that he is strong enough in his own right? That he is not Aenys grasping for her coattails, always needing to be reassured, to be placated, always needing, never sharing. This man, this younger man who wishes to wed her; he speaks his mind, he knows his own mind, he could be trusted to share the weight with her, as he had done so in the four years in Storm’s End she spent furiously working and planning to ensure the safety of her children, as he continues to do so now while they are sharing the rule of the realm until her son comes of age.
But that is part of his danger, too. What if she is tempted? What if she is tempted, after all the years of constant struggling, to give in, to say, “There, now you can be strong for the both of us. I yield.”
She could not abide that. She could not abide to be the Aenys in this new marriage, if thereis to be a new marriage.
“Just because I admire some of the traits you share with my grandmother does not mean it is my grandmother I truly want to wed and bed,” Robar grumbles
“I know.”
“The why do you fear this? Why do you fear us?”
She tells him why. And in the telling, in the act of sharing that weight of uncertainty with him, she manages to assuage some of her doubts, if not all. She had not been tempted to yield during the worst years of her life after all. She had forced herself to take the next step. And the next. And all the ones after that, until she is where is now.
You choose, and you live with the consequences. That is the only kind of hope she could still believe in.
Alyssa Velaryon & Rhaena Targaryen
When this new babe stirred in her womb, what Alyssa remembered most was how it felt the first time a babe stirred in her womb, eight-and-twenty years ago.
“Are you praying for a son?” asked her firstborn, the woman who had once been that babe eight-and-twenty years ago.
“I’m praying for a healthy child.”
“Lord Baratheon must be praying for a son. After all, a son would make so many things easier.”
I have brothers, and they have plenty of sons between them, Robar had insisted, when Alyssa protested that she was too old to be his wife, too old to provide the childless Lord of Storm’s End with an heir.
When her babe kicked, what Alyssa remembered most was Rhaena’s face the first time her twins kicked. “Mother. Oh, Mother,” Rhaena said, wonder, fear and exultation flitting across her face, one by one.
On their grandmother’s insistence, Rhaena’s twins were carefully marked with red and black string respectively, never to be taken off their wrists, to denote the order of birth. “There could be a question of succession later,” Alyssa said, “and we must be clear on who is the elder girl.”
“That will not be an issue. We’ll have plenty of sons later,” Aegon had said complacently, kissing Rhaena’s brow.
Aegon did not live long enough to father any son.
I tried, Rhaena. I tried and I failed. It was difficult to rally people to fight to put a little girl on the throne. And it became impossible after Maegor named Aerea his heir. How could we fight a rebellion against Maegor in the name of the child Maegor already claimed as his heir? Even if it was a lie, even if it was only his dirty trick, it was still a powerful lie.
She had to choose. She chose the possible over the impossible. She chose the path most likely to save them all, Rhaena and her twin daughters included.
Yet she was still haunted by the thought of Rhaena’s unspoken condemnation. You chose your son over your daughter and your granddaughters, Mother.
“I chose too,” Rhaena said. She had supported her brother’s proclamation to sit the Iron Throne. “I chose my daughters’ safety over Aerea’s birthright.”
Alyssa thanked the gods Rhaena never had to choose which child would live or die. Alyssa had to choose. She chose the children she could save over the one she could not.
Viserys’ screams and cries haunted her still. You chose Jaehaerys and Alysanne over me, Mother.
“That was never your choice, Mother. That was never a choice at all. That was the monster and his cruel malice.”
“Tell me what he did to you, Rhaena.” They had never truly spoken of it, of Rhaena’s time as one of Maegor’s Black Brides.
“He didn’t break me. He tried his best, but he failed. You taught me to be strong, Mother. You taught me to endure, to survive.”